this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago (2 children)

You actually do have an option IIRC, it just never tells you. It's supposed to highlight why the military is systemically bad and appears to remove all choice, even if individual soldiers could disobey orders.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yeah, the only big unavoidable choice is the white phosphorus

pretty sure in most others you can either stand for a second and it proceeds or you shoot into the air instead of at someone and it proceeds

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

While the white phosphorus part doesn't give you a choice, isn't it basically that they used it only intending to hit military targets, then it turns out it hit civilians too? shocked-pikachu

I think it's not a choice precisely because it's the worst or most blatant war crime in the game IIRC and most people would decide against it even for "only military targets" and that would stop them from getting the point across.

It's been a long time since I've played it so I might not be remembering entirely right. I might play it again now.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah the white phosphorus scene was really dumb but the rest felt justified.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

Yeah, the white phosphorous scene doesn't really work unless you're coming into it with a mindset of "whoa badass, this is gonna be just like those AC-130 missions in Call of Duty"

Apparently the devs wanted to include a branching story path where the player doesn't use the WP, but they didn't have the budget.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

You should have an explicit option to refuse war crimes, but then it should turn into something like a Hugh Thompson simulator.

CW war crimesWhen news of the massacre publicly broke, Thompson repeated his account to then-Colonel William Wilson[6]: 222–235  and then-Lieutenant General William Peers during their official Pentagon investigations.[15] In late-1969, Thompson was summoned to Washington, DC to appear before a special closed hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. There, he was sharply criticized by congressmen, in particular Chairman Mendel Rivers (D-S.C.), who were anxious to play down allegations of a massacre by American troops.[6]: 290–291  Rivers publicly stated that he felt Thompson was the only soldier at Mỹ Lai who should be punished (for turning his weapons on fellow American troops) and unsuccessfully attempted to have him court-martialed.[5]

Thompson was vilified by many Americans for his testimony against United States Army personnel. He recounted in a CBS 60 Minutes television program in 2004, "I'd received death threats over the phone...Dead animals on your porch, mutilated animals on your porch some mornings when you get up."[16][7]